Ahmadinejad leading polls with 68 per cent

Ahmadinejad leading polls with 68 per cent Tehran - Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was leading early counts of the polls in Iran's presidential election, receiving more than 68 per cent of the votes thus far, the news network Khabar reported.

With more than 35 per cent of the votes counted, mainly from the provinces, Ahmadinejad has a clear lead in the polls with over 7 million votes. His main challenger, Mir- Hossein Moussavi had so far gained less than 29 per cent.

Slightly fewer than 33 million ballots were cast, the Interior Ministry said, meaning that Ahmadinejad would need about 9 million more votes to win the election.

However, Moussavi claimed in a press conference in Tehran that he was the clear winner of the votes and accused the government of having manipulated both the voting process and the counting.(dpa)